Question
Before I ask the question let me set up by saying that my daughter asked me this morning how much Irish she was. I said about a third. She was part Italian, Irish and Polish (unfortunately). It dawned on me that I never factored in the American part as a percentage?
So my question is at what point do we as Americans start inserting American as part of our ethnicity?
When someone criticizes the war, you say, “Looks like you’re not a true ‘Merican.”
Being an ‘merican is a lot like being a Delawarian.
When in America, one always looks to one’s ancestry as to define who you are. As a Delawarian, everyone always asks where you are really from.
When outside of Delaware, you always admit to being a Delawarian just to see if people know where Delaware is. When outside of the States, ‘mericans always say their Canadian.
Ha, ha, ha nemski. Funny!
From Kids in the Hall: “No no, I’m not an American, I’m a Canadian. It’s just like an American, but without a gun.”
My Mehaffey forebears arrived here from Ireland (after being in Scotland prior) in about 1760 and the great tree of my family includes great admixtures of Englishness, Dutchness, Germanicishness, Frenchification, Canadianity and other ethnic and cultural strains. And yet I self-identify as Irish and not just on March 17.
We are who we say we are, and for reasons that we choose individually and differently at different times.
When I was in the first grade, Sister Jane asked the students their national origin. With the school being in West Baltimore, German. Irish, and Irish-German answers came from most kids. There were two boys who answered ‘Italian’ and another couple who answered ‘Lithuanian’.
Lithuanian sounded exotic at the time and I was almost embarassed to say ‘American’. It seemed so commonplace. Birthplace of ancestors was not a big thing in the family.
I have seen some partial geneologies that include the New Jersey branch of the family. Some pride at finding an ancestor who signed the Declaration of Independence was balanced by the discovery of an in-between ancestress who had been head of the NJ branch of the WCTU. I suppose that is a wash.
There were Germans, Dutchmen, Englishmen, and Welshmen in the family tree. One of the Germans was named Marx but there are no Irish. Thus on St. Patrick’s Day I cannot wear the symbolic green. If I could claim a hint of Irish ancestry I would but to make a claim even in jest might seem to be a horning in on someone else’s culture.
Hoisting a Guinness or two and sipping some Jameson’s will have to do as means of showing some respect.